Is the world finally ready for mainstream mindfulness and meditation? Corporate mindfulness coach and consultant Elizabeth Prather thinks so—and she's bringing her passion into the workplace.
But don't take her word for it. From figures like Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey and mega-corporations like Google and Nike, more high-level names and renowned companies are raving about the positive impact mindfulness has on business.
As a mindfulness coach and the founder of The Prather Group, Elizabeth is at the forefront of this movement. She's dedicated to helping organizations and individuals thrive at work and at home by teaching them that the best way to speed up is actually to slow down.
How did Elizabeth discover her love for mindfulness, why is she dedicating her life to bringing it into the corporate sphere and what lessons does she believe every leader needs to know?
Elizabeth grew up attending a Catholic school in Los Angeles, though she admits she never felt strongly pulled towards formal religion. "I was not one of those people who was deeply spiritual," she says, but she also wasn't one to actively rebel against religion. Instead, her focus was on her social life, academics and a future high-level career.
Eventually, Elizabeth attended and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in biology and psychology. Her first job was at a healthcare consulting firm working in mental health, and she quickly excelled. Within eight years, she jumped from a customer care rep to vice president.
She soon picked up more books on mindfulness and started taking meditation classes. Through understanding the human mind from a new perspective, Elizabeth began experiencing moments that ultimately changed her life.
Elizabeth knew she needed a change. Although she initially thought she was only taking a sabbatical, she eventually left her vice president position—and the United States—to fully explore mindfulness across Asia.
Before discovering mindfulness and meditation, Elizabeth remembers "completely living in my head." But after her sojourn in Asia, she found a new, more balanced way to lead her life.
She traveled the continent in an attempt to pin down "how to be deeply happy." But still, she felt stuck between this new passion for meditation and her previous journey as a successful health care consultant.
Then, while studying in Bodh Gaya, the Indian town where the Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment, Elizabeth had a personal revelation.
That's when Elizabeth chose to dive fully into a life of mindfulness, which would soon lead her far from India and into the Central Arizona wilderness for three years of silent meditation.
It was within this silence that Elizabeth finally uncovered her dream career.
I love silent meditation retreats. Yes, they're intimidating—even for me. However, there's nothing like giving yourself permission to fully unplug from the world. It's an incredible way to reconnect and recharge.
Nevertheless, even a dedicated meditation practitioner like myself hasn't gone to Elizabeth Prather-like heights. In 2010, Elizabeth took on the incredible journey of partaking in a three-year silent meditation retreat.
When announcing her intention to friends and family, they all thought she was crazy. After all, if you know Elizabeth, you know she's a talker. But Elizabeth says, "I knew I could handle it." So she, along with five other participants, lived outside of Prescott, Arizona for three years in silence.
While deep in silent meditation, Elizabeth had an "aha" moment. She realized she wanted to share what she learned about mindfulness and meditation with others, especially within the high-pressure environments she used to work in.
After completing her retreat, Elizabeth became a certified instructor through an organization called the Potential Project. Founded by author Rasmus Hougaard, the Potential Project provides innovative, science-backed mindfulness training to over 450 companies worldwide including Cisco, Accenture, and Microsoft to help them perform at higher levels.
Today, Elizabeth has become a prominent voice in bringing mindfulness to leaders and their teams, both with the Potential Project and under her own consulting firm, The Prather Group. Her training has less to do with teaching traditional sitting practices and more about describing the neuroscience and research behind the benefits of mindfulness meditation.
"The [participating] company has to have this open-minded approach," Elizabeth says. "But when they try [mindfulness], they're sold." She loves seeing the light bulb turn on when she explains how to integrate these practices with daily workplace obstacles like tense meetings, writing emails, or using mindfulness to boost creativity.
Meditation also provides permission for busy leaders to stop. Especially as leaders, "we get stressed," Elizabeth says. "We need to rest and recharge.
It's a mindfulness lesson just as useful in our personal lives as it is in the workplace. The truth is that as much as we try, we can't control everything. Especially as high-performing leaders, we too often get caught up trying to manage every situation far too tightly.
Instead, what if we just let go? This isn't to say we should adopt laissez-faire attitudes to leadership. But imagine leaders taking on a more mindful approach to management. By choosing to react less on impulse but rather on thoughtfulness, support and trust, wouldn't we make smarter decisions and stronger teams with the added bonus of decreased stress?
Shouldn't all leaders consider how they can make a positive, personal impact before stepping into the office each day? Instead of obsessing over metrics alone, let's also focus our goals towards lifting our teams and our customers up. After all, it's the people that make our businesses possible. It's just the right thing to do.
Want to hear my entire conversation with Elizabeth Prather? Learn more about how she coaches leaders on integrating mindfulness into their businesses, what she learned about most during her three-year retreat, why the corporate world is ready for mindfulness and so much more. Listen to the entire conversation on my donothing podcast.